Paris, March 1945. The exhibit Théâtre de la Mode is showcased at the Louvre Museum. The event is the result of a collaboration between the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne and Entraide Française, a war relief organisation. The aim of the event is raising funds for the charity, while showcasing the work of Parisian couturiers on wire mannequins posed on sets designed by famous artists.
Until 1940 the French capital had been the centre of fashion. When Paris was invaded things changed dramatically, with couture houses closing and designers moving away. At the end of the War, Paris was suffering from severe shortages and it was hard for many designers to start working again as fabric was hard to come by. Organising proper fashion shows was too expensive and Robert Ricci’s (son of Nina and head of the Chambre Syndicale) idea of dressing up miniature mannequins seemed to be the best to inject new life into the moribund French fashion industry. The idea came from an old practice: sending dolls dressed in miniature versions of outfits to faraway buyers.
The 70 cm tall mannequins - made from wire and with white plaster heads - were designed by illustrator Eliane Bonabel and sculptor Joan Rebull. The outfits made by 53 design houses – among them Elsa Schiaparelli, Balenciaga and Hermès'- precisely reproduced the real clothes. Each outfit was also accompanied by fashionable shoes and accessories such as jewels, gloves, hats and bags.
Twelve sets were created as backgrounds for the mannequins: one of them, inspired by René Clair’s film “I Married a Witch” (1942), was designed by Jean Cocteau. The mannequins in this set - wearing creations by Mad Carpentier, Marcel Rochas and Pierre Balmain - posed in a destroyed room in which the roof and walls had been ripped away to show views of Paris.
After the Louvre exhibition, the dolls toured Europe and the States, but they were soon neglected. In 1947, French fashion was officially reborn thanks to Christian Dior’s revolutionary ‘New Look’ creations. The dolls from the Théâtre de la Mode were donated in the early ‘50s to the Maryhill Museum of Art, in Goldendale, Washington, and, last year, five mannequins were exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum during the event “The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947”.
The Théâtre de la Mode was important as it represented a true perfection in miniature: all the outfits the dolls wore were characterised by that exquisite attention to details fashion designers love. In my researches I often found that quite a few fashion designers started their career by making doll costumes. As a child, Italian Fausto Sarli was fascinated by a puppet theatre that belonged to a neighbour and, since the costumes of the puppets were in tatters, he started sewing an extraordinary wardrobe in miniature to restore them to their former glory.
That same attention to details in miniature can be rediscovered nowadays in Viktor & Rolf’s dolls exhibited at London’s Barbican Art Gallery. For quite a few weeks before “The House of Viktor & Rolf” event opened, the fashion press raved and ranted about the concept of having a doll house staffed with 54 miniature dolls dressed in various scaled down outfits from V&R’s past collections. The idea is not even new for the Dutch designer duo: in 1996, V&R did an installation at the Torch Gallery in Amsterdam entitled “Launch” that featured a tiny catwalk, atelier and fashion shoot and celebrated the launch of a fake perfume complete with ad campaign. The miniature installation symbolised their desire to become fashion designers and the frustrations at not having the financial resources to do so.
V&R’s dolls at the Barbican look rather disturbing and unsettling (though not as disturbing as artist Grayson Perry and his own doll…dear oh dear…) with their ghost-like faces and empty eyes, but they can be considered as a modern reinterpretation of the concept behind the Théâtre de la Mode.
There is also a British label called Theatre de la Mode that a while back presented its debut mens and womenswear collection inspired by Jewish traditional costumes, “Willows”, using miniature installations of animals. It was a financial lack of resources that led the label founders Chris Kelly and Sara Flamm to take inspiration from the French post-WWII mannequins.
Throughout the decades miniature fashion shows have showcased the creativity of many designers. Who knows, maybe in our times of financial hardships, this might turn into a viable way for young designers to cut costs and present their work in an engaging way.
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